


Number One With a Bullet

by sirsparklepants (pixieface)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Superman (Comics)
Genre: Autism Spectrum, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 14:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14792429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixieface/pseuds/sirsparklepants
Summary: That time Clark ate a bullet was about protecting his secret identity, not about the way the crunch and slide of metal in his mouth made everything quiet for a few moments in his head, he swears.The time his father found him gnawing on the rim of an old tractor tire or his mother had to stop him from chewing her garden spade to bits? Not so much.





	Number One With a Bullet

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever start talking characters with your friends and just get absolutely carried away? I talked myself into autistic Superman who stims by putting weird stuff in his mouth, Ivy said Bruce should give Clark an indestructible chew necklace because of all his neurodivergent kids, and they and Mirrors told me I should write it while I had some time to kill today.
> 
> Title is, of course, from Fall Out Boy.

That time Clark ate a bullet was about protecting his secret identity, not about the way the crunch and slide of metal in his mouth made everything quiet for a few moments in his head, he swears. What else was he supposed to do, leave it for the police to recover or Lois to see? She was so observant - he was lucky she missed seeing the shot. 

The time his father found him gnawing on the rim of an old tractor tire or his mother had to stop him from chewing her garden spade to bits? Not so much. 

So, okay, maybe he resorted to eating things too much as a solution. But really, what was the harm? There wasn't much on earth that could hurt him, and inside him, things were safely contained. His mother had worried for a while that maybe he was missing something essential from his diet that he just couldn't get on earth, like the pregnant women who ate clay in South Africa. It wasn't like she could ask a pediatrician - it was a miracle he could eat earth food at all. When Clark was old enough, though, he tried to explain. It wasn't that he was hungry. It's that it felt good between his teeth and was satisfyingly loud when he felt like he could hear everything in the world. Since it didn't seem to do him any harm, she let it go, once he understood the difference between scrap metal and working farm tools. 

As he got older, he chewed things less as he tried harder to pass for normal. He never quite got over wanting to, though. And at his parents’ home, he always got the fork with the weak, bent tines, so it didn't matter if he accidentally clamped down too hard on a bite. His parents politely ignored the metal creaking noise, even though he knew by now that most people found the sound unpleasant. 

He didn't chew very much in the Superman suit - it didn't present a very heroic image. He must have done something that showed how much he wanted to, though. Bruce was observant, very good at research, and had a nearly supernatural ability to make connections between seemingly disparate pieces of information, but his parents would have never told Bruce this, and even Batman couldn't work with nothing. 

Clark looked up from the piece of jewelry in his hand, confused. “What?” he asked. Was this Bruce's idea of a joke? It couldn't be what he had called Clark to the lab for. 

“Bite it,” Bruce repeated, indicating the pendant shaped like Clark's family crest. “I put it through as much as I could in the Watchtower’s lab, of course, but it hasn't been properly field tested yet.”

Confused, Clark brought it to his mouth and bit down. He had no idea what purpose the necklace served - likely he wouldn't learn until it was relevant, that would be like Bruce - but he supposed it made sense to ask the indestructible member of the team with a noted tendency to chew on weird things to test it. He didn't know what Diana would have said to this kind of request. 

To his surprise, the pendant yielded between his teeth without snapping or tearing. He bit a few more times, then had to make himself stop. It wasn't as loud as biting metal, but it was almost as satisfying, and held up better. He took it out of his mouth and stared at it, trying to focus enough to examine the molecular structure. “What did you make this out of?” 

Bruce was staring at it too, not bothering to keep the look of satisfaction off of his face. “No marks,” he said. “Good.”

Clark brought his focus back out from the oddly folded sheets that made up the pendant material and realized that Bruce was right. His teeth hadn't left a single mark on the surface. He didn't miss the way Bruce had avoided his question, so he asked a different one. “It must have taken you weeks to come up with this material. What is it for?” 

“You chew your lip when you're thinking, did you know that?” Bruce asked instead of answering him. “It's a good thing you can't break your own skin.”

Clark didn't know that, actually. “But I can't hurt myself,” he said. “So why this?” 

Bruce was silent for a few moments, turning back to tinker with something that flashed and chirped while he thought. Just as Clark thought he'd refuse to answer the question altogether, a particularly infuriating habit, he looked back up. “Jason did the same thing, a few months after he came to live with me. Alfred caught him smoking one too many times, and eventually he wasn't able to hide his cigarettes any more. He used to chew on the ends of them, but after we got him to quit, he chewed his lip instead. Or his fingers.” He paused again for a while and looked down. “I suppose he smokes again now, but Alfred suggested a necklace for any time for when gum was too loud or inappropriate. Jewelry had worked well to help Dick sit still, after all.”

Unless Bruce was saying he saw Clark as one of his children, he still didn't see why Bruce had given it to him, and Bruce didn't seem inclined to elaborate. Sometimes his silences meant he was done with a topic, but sometimes, after a while, he'd keep talking if he thought his audience was receptive or if he realized something he thought was obvious needed to be spelled out. This time felt like the latter, so Clark closed his fist around the pendant and waited him out. 

Eventually Bruce put down the flashing thing, which had actually stopped flashing as the chirping changed to chiming, and sighed. “Just because you don't bleed doesn't mean it's not bad for you. It was necessary.”

“You created an entirely new material for me,” Clark said. “That's well outside most people’s definition of necessary.”

“Most people don't have Bruce Wayne's resources. If it's beyond their means, it's not necessary for them.” Bruce's voice was as even as it always was, but his shoulders were slightly hunched. 

Clark hmmed softly, but inside he felt as warm as solar noon over the ozone layer. Bruce getting so defensive it showed in his body language was a sure sign that feelings were involved. And since he brought up Dick and Jason, it was a good bet that those feelings were positive. Clark was fairly sure that, whatever Bruce said, this was an act of friendship. “So why did you shape it like that? Did you want Clark Kent to look like a Superman fan?”

Bruce didn't answer him, but there was a grin quirking the corner of his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> [This fic (and I) are on tumblr if you wanna reblog it!](http://sirsparklepants.tumblr.com/post/174372755319/do-you-ever-start-talking-characters-with-your)
> 
>  
> 
> Also I would like to submit fully half of [this article](https://www.cbr.com/the-weirdest-things-superman-has-eaten/) as evidence that Clark thinks eating metal is a good time. More wacky golden age style Superman shenanigans pls comics writers.


End file.
